The Myth of the Wage Gap

Civil Rights Journal, Fall, 1999 by Diana Furchtgott-Roth

Advocates of comparable worth deny that they support a centrally-planned economy, and say that all they want to do is stop discrimination against women. But a preference for more time at home with less pay and less job advancement over more time at work with more pay and advancement is a legitimate individual choice for women. Similarly, the choice of some men to retire early and forego additional earnings, a continuing trend, does not prove inequality between young and old. Neither of these phenomena is a policy crisis calling for government interference.

One of the greatest harms that feminists have inflicted on American women is to send the message that women are only fulfilled if their salaries are equal to men's, and that a preference for more time at home is somehow flawed. Neither men's nor women's education and job choices prove social inequality.

The main question in the wage gap debate is whether individuals or employers will bear the costs of women's personal choices, such as majoring in subjects which command lower salaries, and taking time off to raise children. The practical consequences of forcing employers to bear these costs include less hiring--fewer jobs and more machines. In an international economy that means more jobs abroad instead of at home. Women's wages made the biggest strides in the 1980s, a time of strong economic growth but one in which the minimum wage shrank in real terms and affirmative action enforcement was not a priority. There are also issues of fairness. Artificial increases in working women's wages at the cost of lower salaries for men, or higher prices in stores, hurt non-working women who rely on men's incomes. And why stop at comparable worth for men's and women's jobs? Why not have it for jobs between blacks and whites, or the disabled and the healthy, or tall and short people?

The average wage gap is not proof of widespread discrimination, but of women making choices about their educational and professional careers in a society where the law has granted them equality of opportunity to do so. Comparable worth promotes a dependence for women, and a reliance on government for protection. Given women's achievements, such dependence is unnecessary. American women enjoy historically unparalleled success and freedom, and the progress they have made in the past half century will continue.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author, with Christine Stolba, of Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America (AEI Press and Independent Women's Forum, 1999).